The transmission of audio-video content from a service provider to subscribers in a protected format, such as encrypted television programs via cable, telco or satellite, is in widespread use today. Currently, the majority of the content is encoded with the MPEG2 codec while the trend is to encode more and more, especially high definition programs, with the Advanced Video Codec (AVC) and Video Codec 1 (VC1) codecs which are more efficient with bandwidth and storage. Generally, there are various steps to protect the content along the way.
Prior to transmission, the protected data is conditional Access (CA) or Digital Right Management (DRM) encrypted. On receipt by the cable, telco or satellite set-top box, the content is either CA or DRM descrambled. If the set-top box has a built-in hard disk drive or DVD recording unit, and copy protection allows, then it may be securely recorded locally for playback at a later time. With either real-time reception or playback from the hard disk drive, the content is then decompressed. Decompressed content that is copy protected is encrypted prior to its output over a link to the display such as a television.
For instance, if the link is either High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) or Digital Visual Interface (DVI), the uncompressed digital content is copy protected using scrambling and High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). Scrambling is not applied to un-copy protected content. When HDCP is applied, the default copy protection is “copy never”. This restricted copy protection mode allows the content to be rendered on a display device, such as a stationary television set for example, but does not allow the content to be copied onto another medium. As a result, no copy control information passed since only “copy never” protection is allowed. On the display side, no persistent copies can be made. The content may only be temporarily buffered to allow for signal process, e.g. graphics overlay prior to display.
A growing problem in the foregoing approach is an increasing number of program viewing options available to a user such as certain portable viewing devices. For instance, a portable digital versatile disc (DVD) and BLU-RAY DISC® player, the Sony® PSP®, the Sony® MYLO™, and Sony/Ericson cellular telephones all feature video playback capability. To record received content for these portable viewing devices, the content must typically be scaled for the size and resolution of the screen and encoded using the supported codec. The uncompressed, high definition capable, digital content output from an HDMI or DVI interface would be an ideal, universal source of digital contents from which to re-encode from. Unfortunately, the default “copy no more” status of HDCP prevents the storage of content into portable formats (and by inference the re-encoding or transcoding of content to achieve those formats). This precludes the user from being able to enjoy the programming on these alternate devices.
Accordingly, there is a need to provide a user with the universal ability to securely re-encode uncompressed digital content, and record it for future playback and viewing on portable and other devices.